


XO

by Nebulad



Series: Sea of Stars [13]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 04:11:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6500272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hi sweetie,” she said, and regretted it immediately— she could practically see his shields go up as he turned to face her. It must have been the quality of her voice— she was a truly awful liar if she didn’t have a gun to point at someone to make them believe it. “I want to get to know you,” she tried with a smile she hoped was charming.</p><p>“No one in the galaxy knows me better,” he reminded her, turning back to his interface.</p><p>“Technical stuff,” she offered.</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Because I’m nosy, I don’t know. Will you answer?” she asked, sitting down on a workbench he had set up. He shrugged, obviously suspicious.</p><p>“You can try— wait, is this some roleplaying thing?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	XO

Faust tried to make her walk to the gun control room casual: her pace was even, her hands were relaxed, and she definitely wasn’t too eager to go interrupt what was no doubt a riveting session of gun calibrations.

_(She wasn’t good with tech but sometimes she pretended to be fascinated just to hear Garrus talk about it)_

She had the papers she needed to fill out and sign loaded up into her omnitool and was trying to brainstorm very casual ways to get Garrus to spill some personal information. She would’ve walked into the door if it wasn’t keyed to open for her automatically.

“Shepard,” Garrus greeted, pressing his ‘lips’ against her cheek. He’d been practicing trying to imitate a pucker with his mouth— it was getting nowhere but it was precious and it made her warm inside to think that he was trying so hard to imitate a cultural exchange for her even though he was physically unable to.

She reminded herself to look into what language he spoke.

“Hi sweetie,” she said, and regretted it immediately— she could practically see his shields go up as he turned to face her. It must have been the quality of her voice— she was a truly awful liar if she didn’t have a gun to point at someone to make them believe it. “I want to get to know you,” she tried with a smile she hoped was charming.

“No one in the galaxy knows me better,” he reminded her, turning back to his interface.

“Technical stuff,” she offered.

“Why?”

“Because I’m nosy, I don’t know. Will you answer?” she asked, sitting down on a workbench he had set up. He shrugged, obviously suspicious.

“You can try— wait, is this some roleplaying thing?” he asked, and she snorted out a laugh.

“No— I mean we can if you want?” she offered, but he shook his head and extended his mandibles in what she now recognized as a smile.

“I’ll pass, for now— having sex a room away from the Shadow Broker seems risky.”

“All right then, first question— how old are you?” She was actually surprised that she didn’t know that one. It seemed like a weird thing to not know about your best friend.

“Standard Galactic Time?” he asked, and she nodded. “Twenty-nine.”

“Holy shit, really?” She hadn’t known he was younger than her— by a few years even.

“Why would I lie about that?” he asked, and she shrugged.

“Lots of people lie about their age. Doesn’t matter, _anyway—_ height?”

“Seven feet, give or take,” he said. Faust thanked whichever galactic deity that had given her a whole one hundred eighty-three centimetres to bring to bear. Being tall was good for both vanguard techniques and turian boyfriends.

“Weight?”

“Why do you want to know how much I weigh?” he asked, and she thought about it. It didn’t really fit with her _I want to get to know you_ alibi, weak as it already was.

“Human joke,” she excused dismissively. “Forget I said it— status in the Turian Hierarchy?” She actually _was_ curious about that one— he’d had generals saluting him, with only Primarch Victus seeming at all irreverent to his position.

“They made one up for me,” he reminded her. “Reaper Expert.”

“Okay, but… where is that in relation to Primarch?” she asked.

“Same as my old spot.”

“And where was your old spot?”

“Pretty far down the line until everyone started dying.”

“Are you dodging the question on purpose or…?”

“Nothing gets past you, honey.” He wasn’t looking at her, but although she didn’t know much about tech in general, she knew he also wasn’t doing much on his control interface either. “Don’t worry about it, I’m not going to run off to be Primarch any time soon.”

“Of course not. That would imply I somehow got Victus killed.” Hackett would probably accept just the name of the status— if he had any other questions he could take it up with the Hierarchy. Better yet, she could just ask Victus, see if he’d answer her. “Years of service in turian military?”

“Six. Most serve for at least fifteen, but I left to join my dad in C-Sec,” he explained. “Do I get to ask questions about you?”

“Sure, if there’s something you can’t search on the extranet.” She was a popular figure and along with being so popular came the inevitable dragging up of every gory detail of her life. Mindoir and Akuze were places she’d never fully escape.

“Why are you asking me form-fill questions?” She frowned. Why could Garrus never just be oblivious anymore? Back on the SR-1 she could have quizzed him all day and he’d never suspect a thing.

“Because… I’m… filling a form?” She shrugged nervously. “I’m filling a form. It doesn’t matter.”

“What form?”

“It’s no big deal.”

“What form, Shepard?”

“It’s for the Alliance, don’t worry.”

“Faust.” She scowled, then finally groaned and pulled up the papers on her omnitool. Adrenaline spiked in her like it did when she took on a brute headfirst or something— a mixture of _nerves_ and an overwhelming desire to _take action._

“So I was talking to Hackett and he made an inquiry about the hierarchy of the ship and so naturally I said _it’s my ship and sometimes Joker’s if we’re doing stunts._ But he said Joker couldn’t technically command the ship in my absence since he wasn’t formally trained as anything but a pilot— he knows how to drive a ship, not drive a crew, right? Plus the whole fucking _Alliance_ knows Joker isn’t a people person.

“So he suggested Kaidan but I said I wasn’t all right with that— which I know makes me a bad person but _fuck_ I hate having to justify my every move to him, I hate having to prove that I’m right. and I know it’s stupid and selfish because he’s just looking at my decisions and making his own but in the time it takes to slow down and explain to him that Cerberus is working for _me_ or Udina is staging a _coup_ I could have been back on the ship and having a nap.

“Then Hackett says James, since James is pretty much N7 and has been in charge of troops before— it went badly, but weirdly enough that doesn’t seem to be a problem with the Alliance. I mean, they promoted me after Akuze for _some_ fucking reason, but anyway I said no to James because he doesn’t think about stuff. He doesn’t think about stuff in the way that he lets himself get caught up in the moment and it isn’t… good for him to be put in charge of people right now, unless it’s necessary, because I think his confidence is shot, you know?

“Hackett said that I had to pick someone so I picked you. And at first he said no because you aren’t human and the Alliance is still a little sore about First Contact— I mean especially the brass because most of them fought in it— but then I reminded him that turians helped fucking _build_ the first goddamn Normandy and that making you XO would do _wonders_ for turian/human relations. He brought up that the entire galaxy knows the very special work I’m doing for turian/human relations, but I told him it doesn’t matter! Who’s going to fight me on this?” She gestured outwards with her omnitool and he stared down at in, not understanding.

“Faust stop talking,” he insisted while she paused. “My translator didn’t pick up even _half_ of that.” She groaned irritably, sitting back. This was a big deal, a huge decision, and she should have told him— walked him through it, _asked him_ , but she just—

Didn’t want him to say no.

“I told Hackett that I was going to make you the Executive Officer of the Normandy instead of Kaidan or James,” she summarized neatly.

“You… want me to be XO?” he asked. She nodded. “Why?”

“Because there’s two people on this ship who’ve been here this entire fight, even if they hated Cerberus and even when no one would believe me, and Tali’Zorah has her hands full with Rannoch. I’ve thought about this a lot, Gare. I figured if I die—”

“You aren’t going to die,” he insisted shortly.

“— then you could reasonably finish up what has to be done with the Reapers. From there you could get that Spectre status you’ve been avoiding, take the Normandy, and… go fight crime I guess. Just don’t paint _Archangel_ on the side of my ship.”

“It wouldn’t work,” he argued. “On the SR-1 Presley was your XO because he never left the ship. You don’t go anywhere without me.”

 _“Miranda_ was my XO during the Collector missions, and she came with me all the time. Anyway, Hackett pointed that out too, so I told him Liara would be my desk-XO— you command them if I’m not there for some reason, and if we’re both planetside and communications are fucked, Liara can handle it. He asked why Liara and I told him because my other choice is Javik and at least Liara would try to find our bodies,” she explained.

“Why not just make it Liara then?” he asked.

“Because _you_ are a good leader. Liara can convince people to follow her but she’s better with other academics. The crew mostly already knows and trusts you, and they’ve at least _heard_ of you. You know as much as I do about the Reapers because you’ve been there for me all the way through this never-ending fucking nightmare,” she said, careful not to make eye contact with him. The moment would get mushy and she would have to kill him for laughing at her.

“And this is what you _really_ want?” he asked. She frowned a little, because of course it fucking was. “I’m just saying, Shepard, I commanded a group before and it… didn’t turn out well.” That was sort of an understatement, but Faust would never be enough of a dick to say so. All at once, though, she seemed to suddenly _get_ why Alliance didn’t necessarily require a 100% survival rate for promotions.

“Because you led them well, Gare, and it wasn’t your fault that they got hurt. It was one part Sidonis and four parts every merc on Omega, and you had no more control over that than they did,” she explained. “What happened doesn’t affect the fact that you kicked ass and you directed a mishmash group of people who had never worked together before, and you did it well. The crew likes you and knows that you aren’t a dick.”

“Are those the only requirements for being an Alliance XO? Kick ass and not be a dick?”

“It’s what I put on _my_ resume,” she said with a grin. He laughed, then turned back to his console.

“Send me the forms and I’ll think about it,” he said, starting to work in earnest again.

“Is that the best I’m gunna get?”

“That’s it,” he agreed. She sent him the forms off her omnitool, then kissed his neck which was about as high as she could reach without standing on her toes.

“I’ll take it.”

**Author's Note:**

> so im gunna get through a few drafts I have saved up. [My writing blog is here](http://nebulaad.tumblr.com) if you wanna prompt me for some fresh fic, and are willing to be patient with me.


End file.
